November 25 street date. Vinyl available domestically for the first time since its original release • Includes poster. Formed in 1992 in Boise, Idaho by guitarist and vocalist Doug Martsch, Built to Spill has since evolved radically, shed members, linked eras, and all the while endured as one of the most tuneful and rewarding acts of the lauded Northwest indie-rock tradition. The group signed to WarnerBrothers in 1995, but Martsch was wise enough to retaincontrol over production, and by 1999 he’d helmed thegroup towards commercial and critical success with Keep it Like a Secret. It was a touchstone album, and yet 2001’s Ancient Melodies Of The Future bested that career highlight with considerable grace and craft. Marsch’s studio proficiency is immediately evident in the alternately delicate and devastating mix of mellotron, keyboard, and inventive guitar overdubs that characterize Ancient Melodies Of The Future’s sonic palette. Melodic curlicues distinguish the minor hit “Strange,” while woozy grooves propel the mid-tempo ballad “Trimmed and Burning” through an incendiary solo section. As the album title suggests, Ancient Melodies Of The Future stands outside of history in a realm of its own.

December 2 street date. 2LP includes album download plus a bonus CD of additional tracks. 6-panel digipak CD version also includes the bonus CD of additional tracks! 2001’s Getaway maybe best illustrates whatever mercurial, inexplicable musical power animates The Clean. After the band’s initial rush of activity between 1978 and 1982, the trio lay dormant until the end of the ’80s, when a string of reunion shows inspired the Kilgours and Scott to start recording again. After three well-received albums in the first half of the nineties—1990’s Vehicle, 1994’s Modern Rock, and 1996’s Unknown Country—The Clean disappeared again until the end of the decade, when another tour inspired another record. Speed and spontaneity defined Getaway. Robert says, “I remember writing ‘Silence or Something Else’ while the others went for a long walk. It was done by the time they got back. I probably would have gone for a straighter version, but I still like it.” David remembers, “Hamish wrote the instrumental ‘Jala’ in about five minutes in a motel outside of Turangi.” At one point in the process, Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley were visiting from America, and they ended up on the record too. A live version of the pulsing, soaring “Stars”—along with a couple of other Getaway songs and Clean classics like “Fish,” “Side On,” “Quickstep,” and “Point That Thing Somewhere Else”—appear on the rare 2003 album Syd’s Pink Wiring System. That record is included with the Getaway reissue, along with the more experimental, pianodriven EP Slush Fund, from the same era. These bonus tracks reinforce the idea of the Getaway-era Clean as especially plugged in, generating inspired and beautiful music almost on instinct.

January 27 street date. The debut full-length by Allison Crutchfield titled Tourist in This Town sonically pulls back the curtain on her life and places Crutchfield center stage, fully revealing her power, conviction, and grace. The Alabama native has immersed herself in music since her teenage years, forming notable bands such as P.S. Eliot and Bad Banana (both with her twin sister Katie of Waxahatchee). In 2012, she co-founded Swearin’—the band in which she would truly begin to formulate and understand her full potential as a songwriter—and in 2014, she recorded and released her first solo EP Lean In To It. Her debut album is an accomplished work that integrates her past musical experiences with a pronounced growth in arrangement and instrumentation. Tourist in This Town was made at Uniform Recording in Philadelphia with Jeff Zeigler, who is known for his work with Kurt Vile, Steve Gunn, and Mary Lattimore, among others. His synthesizer collection and related expertise proved an alluring draw for Crutchfield, who had started incorporating synths into her work when she branched off into a solo career. “This record marked a sonic transition in the way I think about the element of space in music, and I attribute that mainly to Jeff,” says Allison. “His arsenal and knowledge of analog synths, along with his ear for spatial addition and subtraction within a song, really sculpted this album and impacted me artistically forever.” “Tourist in This Town is completely made up of heightened anxiety and became a clearly defined puzzle that I slowly put together over the course of a year,” says Crutchfield. “It’s a record about change— change of scenery, of partner, of band, of home, of friends, of outlook—and how that change can cause a temporary panic but ultimate triumph in most of us.”

January 27 street date. Hey Mr Ferryman is Eitzel’s first full studio album recorded entirely in London. It was made at 355 Studios with Mercury Prize winner Bernard Butler (ex-Suede, McAlmont & Butler), who has produced and/or recorded albums with Tricky, Ben Watt, Bert Jansch, Edwyn Collins, and more. Butler produced Hey Mr Ferryman and played all of the electric guitar, bass, and keyboard parts on the album. Hey Mr Ferryman features the vivid melodies long associated with Eitzel’s former band American Music Club—which remains a cult favorite to this day—as well as Butler’s distinctive guitar that serves to complement Eitzel’s expressive vocals. Of that voice, Pitchfork once wrote: “If Leonard Cohen’s voice is a story about the passage of time and Levon Helm’s is a story about losing what is most precious to you, Eitzel’s is about the circuitous roads we take in search of ourselves.” “The songs on this record are about celebrating musicians and music, about misogyny, the long shadow of history, getting one’s head out of one’s ass,” quips Eitzel on the themes of Ferryman. “Also oceans, blood, skies, hearts, gay pioneers, carpenters, weeping women, and how death waits for you even in the happiest place on earth: Las Vegas.” LP includes full album download + 2 bonus tracks.

December 16 street date. FACE TO FACE started off their 25th anniversary with a bang, reuniting with Fat Wreck Chords and releasing their 9th studio full-length Protection. After much critical acclaim for their new material and months of successful tour dates, FACE TO FACE tie a bow on their 25th year together with the re-release of their first 3 albums (Don’t Turn Away, Big Choice, Face to Face). The releases that originally put FACE TO FACE on the map and set them up as a household name in the melodic punk world are now once again readably available. This time around each album has an expanded track list containing bonus songs from the original recording sessions. All 3 have also been remastered and boast enhanced artwork that incorporates silver details to denote the 25th anniversary. The band’s sizable vinyl collecting contingent have reason to celebrate, as both Big Choice and Face to Face have been out of print since their original extremely limited pressings (Big Choice was actually never available to the buying public, only as a rare promotional item) and both will finally be available again. These deluxe re-releases are the perfect nod to 3 absolutely classic albums that not only cemented FACE TO FACE’s place among the punk rock elite, but influenced legions of fans and helped to define the genre.

December 16 street date. FACE TO FACE started off their 25th anniversary with a bang, reuniting with Fat Wreck Chords and releasing their 9th studio full-length Protection. After much critical acclaim for their new material and months of successful tour dates, FACE TO FACE tie a bow on their 25th year together with the re-release of their first 3 albums (Don’t Turn Away, Big Choice, Face to Face). The releases that originally put FACE TO FACE on the map and set them up as a household name in the melodic punk world are now once again readably available. This time around each album has an expanded track list containing bonus songs from the original recording sessions. All 3 have also been remastered and boast enhanced artwork that incorporates silver details to denote the 25th anniversary. The band’s sizable vinyl collecting contingent have reason to celebrate, as both Big Choice and Face to Face have been out of print since their original extremely limited pressings (Big Choice was actually never available to the buying public, only as a rare promotional item) and both will finally be available again. These deluxe re-releases are the perfect nod to 3 absolutely classic albums that not only cemented FACE TO FACE’s place among the punk rock elite, but influenced legions of fans and helped to define the genre.

December 16 street date. FACE TO FACE started off their 25th anniversary with a bang, reuniting with Fat Wreck Chords and releasing their 9th studio full-length Protection. After much critical acclaim for their new material and months of successful tour dates, FACE TO FACE tie a bow on their 25th year together with the re-release of their first 3 albums (Don’t Turn Away, Big Choice, Face to Face). The releases that originally put FACE TO FACE on the map and set them up as a household name in the melodic punk world are now once again readably available. This time around each album has an expanded track list containing bonus songs from the original recording sessions. All 3 have also been remastered and boast enhanced artwork that incorporates silver details to denote the 25th anniversary. The band’s sizable vinyl collecting contingent have reason to celebrate, as both Big Choice and Face to Face have been out of print since their original extremely limited pressings (Big Choice was actually never available to the buying public, only as a rare promotional item) and both will finally be available again. These deluxe re-releases are the perfect nod to 3 absolutely classic albums that not only cemented FACE TO FACE’s place among the punk rock elite, but influenced legions of fans and helped to define the genre.

November 18 street date. (Vinyl edition = double LP with download) When it comes to Australian punk rock, FRENZAL RHOMB are royalty. One need look no further than We Lived Like Kings: The Best of Frenzal Rhomb for proof. After 24 years together their list of accomplishments is long, and their list of songs is even longer. With 8 full-length albums to their credit (two of which breached the ARIA top 20) and twice as many singles and EP’s, FRENZAL have amassed an abundance of balls-to-the-wall, clever, catchy punk rock tunes. We Lived Like Kings pulls together 35 (!!!) of the band’s most essential tracks into one smart package, making for one hell of an introduction to FRENZAL’s huge catalog. For casual fans and enthusiasts alike, this collection really has it all. From start to finish We Lived Like Kings showcases hit after glorious hit of FRENZAL RHOMB’s trademark sound: addictively melodic, witty punk rock, executed with all the flair of Steve Irwin, but with longevity to boot.

November 11 street date. Drag City, Inc. is pleased to announce the solo debut full length from Wand’s Cory Hanson. The Unborn Capitalist from Limbo was recorded during May of 2016 in various locations across Los Angeles County, and features string arrangements by Heather Lockie. Accordingly, records like this accumulate. Life calls for music, for lyric, and if you can somehow handle them without needing to possess them, they echo back again as life, vital in its total excess. Hanson’s lyrics here are his best to date. By turns naked, leering, playful, evasive, they present a mute, parading statuary — doughy figures waltzing in doomed configurations through bleeding watercolor backdrops across terrains of tangled information. The music is gorgeous and livable. Every surface threatens with the promise of an untold depth; every depth threatens to collapse into a surface. Every place you ply a solution turns out to be an intractable edge. You go looking for the soul, but there is no soul— just the things you had to lift to look behind. Children of Limbo, we are gathered here around a floor lamp, a darkening purple desert stretching out in every direction.

December 2 street date. Every side of every 45 from Syl Johnson’s formative years on the Federal Label. Recorded between 1959 and 1962, My Gift is an exemplary collection of early R&B that blends Chicago blues with fiery soul. Cut from the original master tapes, these early recordings are presented pristine fidelity. Limited to 1,000 copies.

December 2 street date. 4CD Box with book. Joining Otis, Wilson, and Percy, plus both Sam and Dave, is a new deity in the eternal soul pantheon. Take it from Syl Johnson himself: “This box set is the history of a masterful artist whose time has just arrived.” The self-proclaimed “most sampled artist ever,” Syl finally gets his due on this 4CD box covering his most productive period, 1959 through 1972. Collected for the first time are all of Syl’s Federal, Twinight, Zachron, Special Agent, Cha Cha, and TMP-Ting 45s, plus period cuts from his Japan-only LP Goodie Goodie Good Times, and a murderer’s grip of previously unreleased and little-heard out-takes. Lovingly remastered from the original source tapes, these 81 songs never sounded sharper, clearer, or funkier. And historian Bill Dahl’s comprehensive track-by-track annotations bring deep-research backstory to every one.

November 4 street date. Available on CD & 2LP. 2LP edition comes in gatefold with download. For Love Often Turns Us Still—officially titled FLOTUS—is like many of Lambchop’s records: a subtle masterpiece, the kind that slowly and generously reveals its quiet wisdom to those patient and attentive enough to receive it. Start to finish, FLOTUS is imbued with that magic energy that comes when an artist stumbles upon the thrill of the new—something that makes them crazy enough to want to start the whole process over again. The album is bookended by two long-form pieces: the first, “In Care of 8675309,” is most reminiscent of where Lambchop has been, while the second, the sprawling, hypnotic “The Hustle,” suggests where they might still be headed. The latter seamlessly shifts between movements, a foundation suggestive of krautrock and early electronic music, gorgeously ornamented with perfectly placed piano and horns. Drawing upon a diverse palate of influences and transcending each one, it’s a stunning piece of work—certainly one of the most impressive achievements of Lambchop’s catalogue. Watching an established artist work with a new set of tools is a gift and a true litmus test for authenticity—the result depending not on the tools, but on the unique sensibilities of the artist using them. FLOTUS is anchored by those sensibilities and is brimming with the many hallmarks of Lambchop’s catalogue: the same beautifully nuanced arrangements, the same unparalleled ability to capture the eternal in life’s quotidian struggles. Kurt Wagner has made a new path to the same old joys, and in the process, he found a record that sounds like no one else—or, completely, unmistakably, like himself.

December 9 street date. Early 80s ALL-STAR line-up !! Including Nick Cave & Thurston Moore and many others! At last, a vinyl reissue on this master piece by LYDIA LUNCH, originally recorded in 1982 and released in 1987. Lydia Lunch, the worldwide recognized artist from New York, recorded this album with THE BIRTHDAY PARTY as well as other friends and mixed it at legendary B.C. Studio in Brooklyn. This album features: LYDIA LUNCH: vocals - ROWLAND S. HOWARD (The Birthday Party, These Immortal Souls): vocals, guitar - NICK CAVE (The Birthday Party, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds): vocals - TRACY PEW (The Birthday Party): bass - MICK HARVEY (The Birthday Party, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds): drums - GENEVIEVE McGUCKIN (These Immortal Souls): piano - THURSTON MOORE (Sonic Youth): guitar - BARRY ADAMSON (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Magazine): double bass. This LP has been remastered for higher sound quality and is released on deluxe gatefold sleeve. As well it includes as bonus track a cover of Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra "Some Velvet Morning" which was not included in the original release. A total must!

November 25 street date. The first new music from Lush for 20 years, and the first the band have released since their single 500 (Shake Baby Shake), taken from their last album Lovelife, in July 1996. The four tracks were recorded in the summer of 2015 with Daniel Hunt (Ladytron) and Jim Abbiss (Adele, Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys). 4AD recently released, to much acclaim, both a vinyl reissue of Lush's 'best of' compilation Ciao! and a limited edition five-disc box set titled Chorus (also as 5xLP for RSD 2016). Signed to 4AD in 1989, over the course of 3 full-length albums, an early mini-album and a number of EPs and singles, they went on to sharpen their pop sound, outliving and outgrowing the 'scene' with which they were initially associated. Available on CDEP and 10 inch vinyl. Self-released by Lush.

December 2 street date. 2LP + Download ! The Magnetic Fields’ first two albums, The Wayward Bus and Distant Plastic Trees, make their debut appearance here on vinyl, packaged together as a two-LP set. Distant Plastic Trees was originally released in England and Japan in 1991. The album includes the early-’90s college radio single “100,000 Fireflies” which had earlier appeared as a single on Harriet Records and was later covered by Superchunk. For its domestic debut, Distant Plastic Trees was paired with the Magnetic Fields’ 1992 album The Wayward Bus on a single CD that came out on the band’s own PoPuP Records imprint before its re-release on Merge in 1994. While both albums feature singer Susan Anway (formerly of early-’80s Boston punk band V;), the latter introduced several new players who would subsequently make regular appearances on Merritt’s various musical projects. “With the 1991 debut album Distant Plastic Trees, the Magnetic Fields’ composer and frontman Stephin Merritt introduced the first incarnation of the Magnetic Fields. On this album, deadpan vocalist Susan Anway sings lyrics of heartbreak and surrealism over a bed of inscrutable instruments played and programmed by Merritt,” Handler explains. “The second album, The Wayward Bus, adds cellist Sam Davol, tuba player Johny Blood and percussionist Claudia Gonson to create a plinky, orchestral sound in tribute to pop producer Phil Spector and his ‘Wall of Sound.’” The album artwork on both Distant Plastic Trees and The Wayward Bus was created by watercolorist Wendy Smith, who had also painted album covers for the Rough Trade band Weekend (a musical project from members of Young Marble Giants). Her beautiful wrap-around paintings, now printed in a larger format, along with remastered audio make this two-LP set an exciting addition to the Magnetic Fields discography.

January 27 street date. (CD & LP Download include an additional track) With Alice, Meatbodies return ascending toward ground level. A “heavy-pop” concept, metal on molly. Chad Ubovich, Patrick Nolan, and Kevin Boog step out in new form, soaring through diverse stories, tones, and characters. Dancing between quiet and loud, funk and doom, pop and noise. Their message preached is celestial and deafening, a sacred scripture for today’s world: a warbling rhodes piano, a liquifying electric guitar, a ghostly synthesizer skating across the sands of a twelve-stringed acoustic. The band digs deep into the rich soils of Earth to reveal the chaotic sensual vibrations underneath the fields we walk upon. Connecting our limbs, our mouths, our consciousness to the microcosms of the grime, all while being lit by black light. Captured wriggling and alive in San Francisco by Ubovich and Eric Bauer at The Bauer Mansion, this album is a step in the right direction, a new direction, a new way of thinking. Watching the futures, watching the world burn. “Ubovich intones with a spaced-out, reverb-heavy delivery like a garage-punk Syd Barrett.” —LA Weekly

November 11 street date. Papa M? Are you serious? The last time we said “Papa M,” it was 2004 and we were talking about a retrospective compilation album! There were no expectations, and none given! Sure, Papa M was attached to some of the 80s–90s greatest no-core records, especially if you consider his imaginary alter ego, one David Pajo. But that was a long time ago! So why then does Highway Songs spill into our ears with a newness, a vitality that only fresh blood can bring? Could it be because of all the blood? David Pajo’s been writing lines on the guitar since he was a bitty little kid. It sustained him through a lot of groups, like Maurice, Slint, Aerial M, Tortoise, The For Carnation, Dead Child. And now that he’s grown up to be a bitty little man, what’s he gonna do, change? If you think so, you don’t know Pajo — or as he’s been known to sometimes go, Papa M. The instrumental sounds he’s made in the name of these names — on albums with names like Live From a Shark Cage and “Whatever, Mortal”— implied danger, violence and total alienation, alongside a peaceful, easy, good-willin’ and wide streak of broke-toothed black humor. So, after those classic albums followed by a long silent phase, broken only by a steady stream of sweet (and terrifying) pictures on Instagram, we’ve now got Highway Songs. Sounds pastoral. Bucolic, even. Don’t worry. This album could be called “Wreck on the Highway Songs.” Or “Live From an Oxygen Tent.” You get it right away, when “Flatliners” bursts into full metal jackin’, igniting the Pajolian doom-rock inner magma into firey evidence. With a humble combination of sources, Papa M has traditionally traced his music from aboriginal blues all the way through the rock and on into 21st century classical (wait for it), exploring moments via an audio-diary verite. With each encroaching moment of Highway Songs, it sounds to us more and more like good old Papa M, as David throws back the veil of tears from recent times to bear witness to miasmic moodclouds. Music from where the mind goes when the body is broken. Whew! Right? It sounds tough, but the Papa M approach is laced with fun amongst the bristle, with loads of tasty playing and a dynamic that pits darkness vs light vs irreverence in a Mexican standoff. As before, it’s pretty much all played by Pajo, whose multi-instrumental flair speaks of the gumption and optimism that has always run under his bridge — along with the blood and water and sperm, massed together in a hypnotic flow. All these things are what makes Papa M, and it’s damn good to hear them, and him, again.

November 25 street date. Vinnie Paz, the dynamic frontman of Jedi Mind Tricks and orchestrator of the supergroup Army of the Pharaohs, returns with his third full-length solo album, The Cornerstone of the Corner Store. After more than 20 years in the game, Paz once again demonstrates his craft with the acumen and reverence of a well-schooled veteran. Independently released on his own imprint, Enemy Soil Records, The Cornerstone of the Corner Store is the culmination of a lifetime of dedication. According to Paz, the sound and aesthetic of Cornerstone is a heavy dose of grit and grime; “It’s a dirty record by design. It’s an homage to that era I grew up in.” Indeed, Cornerstone is filled with the type of ferocious rhymes and snarling delivery that the Philadelphia MC is known for. The growl is thick, the vocal weaponry is heavy, and Paz delivers each track with his unique blend of raw street gospel and philosophical consciousness. Features many excellent guests including Ghostface Killah, A.G. & O.C., Demoz, Conway, Ransom, Eamon, Hus Kingpin & Smoovth, Ras Kass, Jakk Frost and Malik B. CD available October 28 (ESO016012).

November 25 street date (date change). First vinyl reissue of classic 1972 debut album originally released on Albert Grossman’s Bearsville Records • Produced by Todd Rundgren ! Sparks’ eponymous 1971 debut presents the singular compositional, lyrical and singing voices of Ron and Russell Mael fully formed. Originally released under the moniker Halfnelson, Sparks’ prescient debut prefigures Queen, power pop, and especially Southern California’s late ’70s skinny-tie explosion. It’s a landmark of Todd Rungren’s early production career, and clearly the backing band of brothers Earle and Jim Mankey brought Sparks’ pop idiosyncrasies to their later work with The Dickies, The Quick and 20 / 20. Infectious, daring, and delightfully flaunting camp theatricality throughout, Sparks is the first installment in an unparalleled series of some of the decade’s most classic albums. Careening melodies soar through space-detritus electronics on the strikingly original “Roger,” which evokes the early solo work of Brian Eno, but the deranged art-rock closing track “(No More) Mr. Nice Guys” is the unequivocal classic of Sparks’ early career and a staple of the band’s live set ever since. Rundgren’s restrained production wisely sets the Mael brothers at the fore of Sparks. With just subtly treated cymbal flourishes keeping the pace, album opener “Wonder Girl” is pared down and mixed to showcase two things: Ron’s twinkling piano trill and Russell’s fluttering high-register. As Rundgren perceived, and a multi-decade career confirms since, their fraternal chemistry is a consummate force.

November 25 street date for LP (date change). From the same misty mountaintop tape spool as August’s A Weird Exits, Thee Oh Sees bring the companion album An Odd Entrances. Delving more towards the contemplative than the face-skinning aspects of its predecessor, this sister album is a cosmic exercise en plein aire with John Dwyer and company double-drum shuffling, lounging with cellos, following a flute around the groove, and spooling a few Grimm-dark lullabies along the way. Lurking in the grass are a snake or two, like the celestial facing instrumental buzz of “Unwrap The Fiend Pt. 1.”… But for the most part this is a relatively hushed affair, a morning rather than evening listen. The band plans on donating half their profits from the first pressing to Elizabeth House, a local charity in Pasadena that specifically helps homeless women with children get back on their feet. (LP Includes Download)

November 4 street date. Funk was the syncopated groove that emerged in the mid-sixties through hits from James Brown and Dyke and The Blazers. It was a natural development out of rhythm and blues. Thousands of local bands tried to emulate Brown’s success, and in the process created a plethora of rare and sought after 45s and album cuts that have been mined by DJs and producers to fill floors or provide breakbeats. Whilst the 20 tracks on this compilation would cost you thousands of pounds to own on their original issue, that isn’t really the point. Instead you get to listen to magnificent grooves such as Mickey & The Soul Generations explosive ‘Iron Leg’, Andrew Brown’s blues tinged ‘You Made Me Suffer’ or the message music of 24 Carat Black. On the 14th October 2016 J&D Records release three exceptional compilations that look at vintage African-American music through the prism of UK club culture. All Night Long, Can You Feel That Beat and Extra Added Soul will be available on CD & double vinyl and are compiled by DJ and award winning compiler Dean Rudland, with stunning artwork from his long-time collaborators The Unknown. Across the three volumes there are 60 tracks of soul, funk and boogie.